Top 10 Album Covers of 2021 that look “Most Likely to Contain a Passage of Beguiling Flute™”
This album could have been the 2014 winner:
When I started looking through album covers late last year, there seemed to be an endless supply of Prog Rock and New Age looking album covers. I started joking with twitter user @ChristyW907 that an album cover could win an award for being “The Most Likely to Contain a Passage of Beguiling Flute™” and I picked a winner every week. Out of the whole year, there were some real standouts, that seemed truly likely to contain beguiling flute.
Elements that generally made an album seem likely were a fantastical landscape, preferably with multiple moons or planets in the background, dreamcatchers, or other wispy fantasy elements.
What is beguiling flute, specifically, you ask? It’s one of those things where when you hear it, you know. It’s a passage of flute that whimsically invites the listener to don a filmy skirt and peasant shirt and dance inexorably towards the unseen flautist.
A note: some of these albums I listened to and confirmed there was, in fact, a passage of beguiling flute, but most don’t really, and the ones that do are lost to time and memory. You’ll have to give every album a listen yourself to find out for sure.
10: Sungazer – Perihelion
An unconventional choice, chosen for looking like a New Agey Prog Rock “project” like The Alan Parson’s Project. There are no moons or planets per se, but I can definitely hear the flute.
#9: Strick – Strick Land
This album has the distinction of being the only album that is both likely to contain beguiling flute, and language that a parent would feel caution about exposing a small child to. While I can’t make out a lot of extra planets in the sky, we’ve got the flute-ception-like fantasy-landscape-within-a-fantasy-landscape, a waterfall, and some sexy beings trapped in crystals. All of these point to beguiling flute.
#8: The Sherlocks – World I Understand
It’s incredible how common a theme interlocking clocks are in prog rock albums. There were actually several that didn’t make the list but seemed even likelier to contain beguiling flute, but World I Understand makes it because I like the concept of their weird steampunk head-device.
#7: Kalidia – Lies’ Device
First of all let’s talk about the placement of the apostrophe in the album title, indicating that the titular “Device” actually belongs to lies themselves. Then we have over-adorned font curlicues in the band title, a symbolic wheel of lies, mysterious occult figures, eyes, and…some tentacles of lies? Either way, I am certain there is going to be beguiling flute inside.
#6: JPL – Sapiens chapitre 2 / 3 : Deus ex Machina
First of all we’ve got the off-brand “Yes”-look-alike logo of JPL. Next we’ve got what looks to be a planet and the planet’s own moon. We’ve got a generic spaceship coming in for a landing. We’ve got a lone figure contemplating the passage of time outside a glimmering city. We’ve got an extremely French multi-part title. All of this points to at least one passage of beguiling flute.
#5: Galaad – Paradis posthumes
Here we have a mandala of vague figures from various belief systems across the world, a hazy treatment, and a distressed fine-art frame. Add the not-quite-well-designed band’s typefaces, and you can be almost certain you’re in for some beguiling flute.
#4: DREAMCATCHER – Dystopia: Road to Utopia
The subtle psychedelic embossed rainbow dreamcatcher seems to almost ensure beguiling flute.
#3: Syrinx Call – Mirrorneuron
I cheated a little and bumped this album up probably further than the cover itself deserved when I found out that German recorder player Volker Kuinke is the main feature of Syrinx Call. Check out the incredible masthead of his website as he passionately recorders like some kind of recorder god:
#2: Emphasis: Spiral of Time
I decided that each moon or planet hanging peacefully in the sky adds to the likelihood of beguiling flute. I feel like the leader of Emphasis sat there next to the designer, asking for yet another moon, until finally he cried out in a Scottish accent, “There’s nae room for anymore moons!” Add a lonely figure. Pair that with the over-adorned “E” in the band’s name, and you’ve got some extreme likelihood.
#1: Joel Vandroogenbroeck – For View
An obvious slam dunk, since there is not only hippie imagery, but actual flute playing is depicted. This is the quintessential beguiling flute indicator. Is it a little on-the-nose? Absolutely. Still, however, the year’s winner of the award.